More and more, we speak picture
language with digital icons of Home
Heart (in the colour of the moment)
Envelope, Clock, Arrow and Bin

but icons of paint and blood travel
with us in their world of gold leaf
as portraits of the life
we like to live

thoughtful and attentive
like a busty bird
showing its feathers

and not camouflaging itself
in the attire of its neighbours
colleagues or pictograms

Humans can be strong
like a bear, with a gun

or a cannon, and swim
like the fastest fish, with sails

or a motor, they can
even fly with large wings

that don't need to strike
and therefore are not real wings

An airplane is a thing
the true flyer is the Fly

All birds are jealous of it
because it wears the crown

of its name, credit
where credit is due: the Fly

Stones are immortal
the dreamt new bodies
of the spirit

of the deceased
on their grave, the bones
of the big mother

Throw them over your shoulder
with a covered head, then children
will jump up behind you

who know they are lonely
They want to cooperate
and imitate each other

Their sounds become language
which broadens their consciousness
their communication control

the consideration of interests
and of goals to be achieved -
the understanding what is going on

Why use old language
if a new one hits shorter and more
powerful into heads and hearts?

Letters are out of time, long, slow
and so privy they wrap reality
in nice words of imagination

The facts are difficult enough
to understand, just keep
to the news of your choice

That's why we uncover the core
cut away the nuances
and speak in plain language

popular Diets Duits Dutch, because
that way ordinary people have
become more worldly-wise

Poems are not word-
but life-processing

in thought-out feelings
and pain

treasuries of words
from our Language Mother

passed on
to teach

how we live and die
in the open institution

for talking animals
which is our world, and language

developed from hearing to reading
developed from ears to eyes

developed from letter- to image-
pixels, writings on the wall

on side-filling screens
where once were books
waiting for cleaning

The teacher strays off
about the arts, useless
at first and afterwards
there is a use

With everything it has gone
like that, with language
it is repeated
at every birth

Babies try
to link
our sweet words
and motherese

to what is happening and thus
to come from provisional
to definite meanings
Step by step it gets useful

to talk to each other
even as a stranger
to the strangers
you don't understand

It started with ox house donkey
In the barn of the large house
The room was full of family

It was warm, with mum
and the aunts who know all
about childbirth, the men also

stayed up and drank to the new
king, his little bed with lambskin
in a manger was next to me

After Passover in the capital
we had to leave, the news
of our son was buzzing around

people came to warn:
Ox house camel, the alphabet, door
to open and to close

hand that reaps the fruits, eye that sees
and mouth that speaks the truth
My heart that knows the concealed

breath of the breathing, spirit
over the waters, the words
it once started with